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Apr 3, 2015

Rabat – More than 823 Moroccan railway workers and others of Moroccan origin called on the France’s national state-owned railway company (SNCF) to end the discrimination they suffer at the workplace.

According to Le Monde, the Moroccan workers are complaining about the railway company’s discriminatory treatment and their lack of equality with their colleagues of French nationality.

These railway employees “worked in difficult conditions, were doing exactly the same work as their French colleagues according to the Staff Regulations, but had their careers blocked and had lower pensions,” Olivier de Boissieu, one of their lawyers, was quoted saying.

The Moroccan workers require the application of the principle of “equal work, equal pay”.

Most complainants were recruited by the SNCF in Morocco in the early 1970s. Hired as employees with a private contract, they do not fall within the rail workers’ special status, reserved for French natives.

Although they were doing the same work as their French colleagues, the careers of these plaintiffs were blocked in particular due to their lack of French nationality.

“We were not treated equally. I cannot help but feel a sense of humiliation,” said Ben Dali, 63, one of the spokesman for the Association of Moroccan Railway Workers.

“I have trained colleagues who have been promoted and have become my bosses. It’s very frustrating,” said another Moroccan, who is still in business.

In his interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, Mohamed Benatta said, “When they came to Morocco, looking for workers, they told us that we would do the same job as the French, and we would be treated like French, but we never had the same privileges.”

For its part, the SNCF denies any discrimination between employees of the same qualifications. It provided a “panel” comparing “more than a thousand workers.”